FUTURE OF POLAND IN THE NEW NATO?

The leaders of NATO met in Brussels last week and tried to decide what to do with the Atlantic alliance. Over four decades ago, NATO was created for one purpose only: to counter the potential threat of a Warsaw Pact invasion of Western Europe. That's the reason it was invented; that's the reason it endured; that's the reason it was deemed an overwhelming success as the Berlin Wall crumbled and Communism collapsed in Eastern Europe. NATO outlasted the Communist threat that was its raison d'etre.

Now the question arises: what do we do with an entity that has accomplished its mission? What do we do with a very sophisticated, integrated military command structure? For what purpose do we maintain a state of the art military alliance that integrates intelligence, communications, logistics and command functions? Why, for example, should over 100,000 American troops be positioned in Europe prepared to fight an enemy we can't identify?

The awkward answer to all of these questions seems to be that the cohesion and stability that NATO engendered in Western Europe for over 40 years is too valuable to sacrifice simply because we now can't figure out what to do with the alliance. We can't let it die, although we can't glibly articulate why it should live.

NATO forfeited its obvious role as Europe's great stabilizer when it fretfully watched the Serbian mayhem explode first in Croatia and later in Bosnia. The former NATO commander, General John Galvin, has identified key junctures where a show of minimal force by the alliance early on could have stopped Slobodan Milosevic's nationalistic attempt to create a "Greater Serbia." Milosevic's intent was clear. The NATO command well knew where he was headed. But NATO froze with its nervous finger on the trigger.

Croatia and Bosnia are closer to the NATO frontier than New York is to Boston. If the alliance cannot concert itself with savagery in its midst, what is its relevance as a great stabilizing influence on the continent of Europe?

Some argue that NATO's future is to add new members, expand its military forces and, presumably, forward deploy American forces in Poland so that the United States would be trip-wired into any military conflicts between a once again nasty Russia and any of its neighbors, especially Poland.

The Poles have every reason to want into NATO. Just as the pre-World War II Polish state wanted guarantees by Great Britain and France against German militarism, Poland now wants tangible protection against aggressive claims by any of its neighbors -- especially Russia, perhaps with Belarus and Ukraine.

No other nation in history has seen its borders shift so violently as has Poland. It was partitioned in 1772 when Russia, Prussia and Austria each took a bite. Again in 1793, Russia and Prussia took even more. In 1795, it ceased to exist as its big three neighbors finally devoured it. Recreated after World War I, it was again divided between Germany and the Soviet Union in 1939, but re-emerged once against with vastly different borders in 1945.

Why not resolve Poland's anxiety with mutual guarantees of border frontiers amongst the East European nations, especially those adjacent to the old Soviet Union?

Not good enough for Lech Walesa. That's what Warsaw had in the 1920s and 1930s. Poland had "guarantees" from France, Romaina and Great Britain (in early 1939). It signed nonaggression pacts with Russia in 1932 and Germany in 1934. Its future was assured -- until 1939, that is.

Walesa has observed NATO's timidity in Bosnia. He knows that the U.N. has recognized the integrity of the borders of Bosnia, yet watches as the carnage continues. He wants more than verbal guarantees of border security. He wants American troops, under the direction of the American NATO commander, inside Poland. To Walesa, any violation of the Polish frontier should mean war between that aggressor and the United States.

Old cold warriors like Henry Kissinger are apparently ready to sign up and expand the U.S. defense budget sufficient to station additional U.S. men and equipment inside the borders of Poland and other new NATO members. They seem to argue that we should close in on Russia while it is in internal disarray.

Now is not the time to fashion a new NATO with American troops stationed near the border of Russia. Exploiting the current instability within Russia at the moment will not contribute to the long-range stability of Europe.